New Delhi: A Delhi court has taken nine
years to acquit a man charged with kidnapping a major girl with whom he had eloped and married in 2002 and had been living as man and wife since then.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Sharma acquitted east
Delhi resident Ali Raja of the charges of kidnapping his
"girl friend" after she deposed in the court that she had run
away from home on her own will and she was not a minor at the
time of the incident.
"It is clear that the prosecution has failed to prove
its case against the accused (Ali Raja). It could not be
proved that either the woman was under 18 years of age at the
time of the alleged incident or that she was forcibly
kidnapped by the accused," the judge said.
The court said the woman "has turned hostile to the
prosecution" and has favoured the accused by saying that she
is his legally wedded wife.
The woman, in her statement recorded in-camera, said
that she had converted to Islam on October 6, 2002 and married
Trilokpuri resident Raja. Now, the couple has a seven-year-old
child.
On October 13, 2002, Diwan Singh, father of the woman
lodged a complaint at Mayur Vihar Police Station here that his
minor daughter has gone missing.
The woman deposed that her father had fixed her
marriage with a man and she was not happy with this decision.
Thereafter, she fell in love with Raja, ran away with him and
and married him.
The court declared Singh hostile for deposing the
wrong date of birth of his daughter in the court.
He had said that her daughter was minor at the time of
incident, while the court found that as per the actual date of
birth, she was major at the time of the incident.
PTI
